Crosby v. Lyon

By the Court, Sanderson, J.: This is a proceeding under the forty-ninth title of the Practice Act, to obtain a writ of mandamus, commenced by the Superintendent of Common Schools for the County of Placer against the Auditor of that county, to compel him to apportion to the School Fund of that county certain moneys derived from certain taxes levied by the Board of Supervisors upon the property of the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California for the support of common schools.

The petition shows that for the year 1868 the Board of Supervisors levied a tax of eighteen cents upon each one hundred dollars of taxable property in the county for the support of common schools. That, under this levy, there was collected of the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California the sum of one thousand and thirty-four dollars and twelve cents, which is now in the treasury of the county. That it is the duty of the respondent to apportion this sum to the School Fund, yet he neglects and refuses to do so.

The respondent admits the refusal, and justifies it under the provisions of the eighteenth section of “An Act to authorize the County of Placer to subscribe to the capital stock of the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California, and to [244]provide for the payment of the same, and other matters relating thereto,” (Stats. 1863, p. 145,) which, as he claims, requires him to apportion the money in question to the Railroad Fund for which that Act provides.

' That Act authorizes the county to subscribe and take two hundred and fifty thousand dollars of the stock of the railroad company, to be paid for in the bonds of the county. It then makes provision for the issuing and redemption of the-bonds, and to that end creates what is denominated a “Railroad Fund,” to which all the dividends, issues, and profits arising from such subscription, “together with the.taxes that may be paid by said company to said county from time to time,” are apportioned, until such time as the bonds shall be redeemed, after which one half of the dividends, issues, and profits is to be apportioned to the School Fund,, and the other to the General Fund. (Sec. 18.)

Assuming that “the taxes” here spoken of include all taxes to be paid by the railroad company, irrespective of the purpose for which they "may have been levied, it is argued that the statute, so far as it operates upon the school tax, is repugnant to "the Constitution. The point is founded chiefly upon- section two of Article' IX of the Constitution, which provides that “the Legislature shall encourage, by all suitable means, the promotion of intellectual, scientific, moral, and agricultural improvement. The proceeds of all lands that may be granted by the United States to this State for the support of school's, which may be sold or disposed of, and the five hundred thousand acres of land granted to the new States, under an Act of Congress distributing the proceeds of the public lands among the several States of the Union, approved A. D. 1841, and all estates of deceased persons who may have died without leaving a will or heir, and also such per cent as may be granted by Congress on the sale of lands in this State, shall be and remain a perpetual fund, the interest of which, together with all the rents of the unsold lands, and such other means as the Legislature may